Drone flights suspended in NY after crash

Reaper drone flights have been grounded in Central New York after one of the craft crashed into Lake Ontario. The incident has sparked debate among activists who claim the Reaper is among the most accident prone of drones and should be decommissioned.

US officials at the 174th Attack Wing announced the suspension of
all Reaper flights on Tuesday as a precautionary measure,
following a crash about 19 kilometers from the eastern shore of
Lake Ontario. As of yet the Coast Guard have been unable to
salvage the $4 million unmanned craft because of poor weather
conditions.

“We have no reports of injuries or damages to civilian
property at this time,” said Colonel Greg Semmel of the 174th
Attack Wing to press, adding that no weapons or hazardous
material were onboard the remotely-control plane at the time of
the crash.

He said that it had not been decided when drone flights would be
resumed in the Central New York area.

The unmanned Reaper craft is one of the staples of the US
military and is in use in Afghanistan and Pakistan for both
surveillance and military strikes. The Reaper is larger than the
better-known Predator drone, with a wingspan of 66 feet and the
capacity to carry Hellfire missiles as well as other armaments.

There have been a number of reports of accidents involving
Reapers since they have been in use on American territory. A
survey carried out by Bloomberg in 2012 revealed that there had
been 129 accidents documented over the past 15 years involving
the Reaper as well as the MQ-1 Predator and RQ-4 Global Hawk
drones.

They calculated that on average there were 9.31 accidents for
every 100,000 hours of drone flight.

Anti-drone activists have capitalized on the statistics and
slammed the use of the remotely-controlled planes on US
territory.

Ed Kinane a Syracuse-based peace activist told syracuse.com that
this latest crash was another reason why the use of drones should
be discontinued.

“One of the notorious things about drones and Reapers is their
high accident rate,” Kinane said. “A general concern is
that because the military is so in love with drones and the
Reaper, it appears they have rushed these things into
production.”

In spite of opposition to the craft, the US government has put
forward a plan to widely expand the use of drones in the US by
2015.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) presented their
plan of expansion on Thursday last week at an
aerospace news conference.

"We recognize that the expanding use of unmanned aircraft
presents great opportunities, but it's also true that integrating
these aircraft presents significant challenges," Reuters
quoted FAA Administrator Michael Huerta as saying. He added that
US aviation regulations and safety rules would remain a “gold
standard” for the rest of the world “to maintain our
position of global leadership.”